


stepfather + child relationship of the year, right there

by darlathecyborgpluviophile



Series: bad dreams for skelememes [2]
Category: Undertale
Genre: Dissociation, Flashbacks, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Referenced Child Abuse, Referenced Major Character Death, Third Person POV, oh boy i'm back on my bullshit again, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 14:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16725165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlathecyborgpluviophile/pseuds/darlathecyborgpluviophile
Summary: "I had a nightmare," the kid says, and with it his own flashes back in—cold, cold, cold, a blizzard of fine white powder blowing all around, mingling with the snow, filling up his ribcage and his eyes and every hollow in his body until he's suffocating—





	stepfather + child relationship of the year, right there

Long night. 

He's hunting for a glass of water, fishing a glass out of the half-empty dishwasher and reaching for the taps on the sink when he hears it.

Yelling. From the kid's room. 

The sound pierces the five A.M. air, tricking his sick mind into thinking he's in another place, another time—black all around him, text boxes in golden and white that slowly fade into a blood-spattered hallway. 

When reality finally bleeds back in, he's got a death grip on the glass, and the sound of water rushing from the faucet (when did he turn that on?) is barely not enough to mask the sobbing coming from the room down the hall. 

The heart he doesn't have pounds, beats against his ribcage in the flimsy sleep shirt he's wearing; one of Toriel's, too big on his squat form. 

Why isn't she in there already, anyway? He drags a hand down his face—doesn't matter. 

The sobbing won't stop. God, he's never heard them this bad. 

He's shaking so violently that it requires two hands to return the water glass where he found it, and even then he barely makes it. He closes his eyes, whips up a deep breath, just like Tori's been teaching him—and makes a concentrated effort to walk across the kitchen and into the hallway lined with bedrooms, a far cry from the one in the flashback.

Approaching the kid's door (its wooden frailty covered with papers and stickers and glitter, all contributed by friends and family after they'd settled in—there's his contribution there, a decorative tape with a bone design) he takes another deep breath. As he rests his hand on the doorknob, he realizes that maybe this is a bad idea—maybe they'll be just as terrified of seeing him right now as he is of them.

He recoils. Still manages to play it off, though there's no one around to fool. Instead of sauntering in uninvited, he chooses to knock.

"knock knock," he says, in tandem with the sound itself.

The sobbing stops abruptly. Shit,  _shit_ , what if he fucked up—

He gets a thick sniffle in response, followed by a quivering, "Who's there?"

For some reason, the little voice stings more than it should. He breathes again, steadies his voice into that practiced, laid-back lilt: "orange."

No sniffle this time. "Orange who?"

His smile grows a little wider, and it feels almost natural, like a choice he's making for himself. "orange ya gonna let me in?"

At least he gets a snort for his troubles, followed by the softest of giggles.

"Come in."

Always so polite, the kid is. _Even when leering with a knife, standing over a pile of—_

He refuses to finish that thought as he opens the door. 

"woah, kid, no light?” he mutters, and feels out the switch on the wall next to the bed.

The light flickers on. He catches them kneeling on their bed, one hand rubbing at their eyes and another one clutching at the blankets. 

"S-sorry. Did I wake you?"

He'd never have heard them if he hadn't been awake already. 

"nah, it's cool."

There's a chair tucked into the desk against the same wall as the bed; he steals it out of its little hiding spot, swings it around and sits on it backwards.

God, he always forgets how tiny they are. Everyone's only been on the Surface for about six months, and somehow that hasn't been enough time to put meat on those bones of theirs. He can see their wrist poking out of their pajama sleeve, the radius jutting like it's trying to strain free of their skin.

The sight makes him sick. Well, everything this godforsaken morning is making him feel sick. Fuck.

"I had a nightmare," the kid says, and with it his own flashes back in—cold, cold, _cold_ , a blizzard of fine white powder blowing all around, mingling with the snow, filling up his ribcage and his eyes and every hollow in his body until he's  _suffocating_ —

They must notice the lights in his eyes flicker out. He even notices himself, in a distant kind of way; floating over his body and watching this scene unfold from a safe vantage point.

“wow. that’s rough, buddy.” An appropriate reaction for the situation, right? He doesn’t know. His senses are deadening the longer he sits next to this _murderercheaterliar—child—_

Something rights itself in his head, at least for a moment. _what would tori say?_

Like moving through gelatin ( _or dust_ , his mind provides helpfully) he feels himself shake his head, bringing the little twin flames back to life. “dyou wanna talk about it?” he asks, and the question sounds like white noise when said out loud.

The kid comes down off their knees, settling a little in the blankets that pool around their legs. They play with their hands, sniffle again, pick their words wisely.

“I—" they start, but don’t go anywhere. It trails off, swallowed by the horrors this night has brought to the both of them.

“take your time,” he thinks he says. He’s not entirely sure he did—it’s an uncharacteristically gentle phrase, for him.

They sniffle again, their face crumpling, snot resuming its oozing path out of their nose.

“It was so dark,” they whisper through their tears. “I was all alone—I had my phone and tried to call mom, and you, and Papyrus and Undyne and no one answered, nobody came.” They try to swallow the sob that comes out.

“I knew something was coming, something big and scary, but I could barely see—and when it came, it was—was—“

“a flower?” he finishes for them.

“No.”

That gets his attention.

“It wasn’t—him, Asriel, it wasn’t him, I promise.” They hiccup. “It was my old parents.”

His eyes find their way back to the kid’s skinny arm again, the bones just as sharp and noticeable as before.

“They weren’t people either, they were just…all darkness, reaching for me—“

“kid,” he says, and it’s the first thing he’s actually felt himself say all conversation. He flickers his eyes, once, twice—he’s a little bit back in the chair, a little less floaty than before. “i’m…sorry.”

They lift a hand to their face, trying to hide their shame beneath. “And they, they did—“

“ya don’t gotta talk about it if you don’t want to,” he cuts off, tone aiming for casual. The kid drops their hand from their mouth.

“I was _so_ _s-scared_.”

“sounds like it was pretty scary. but y’know, they’re just dreams,” he starts, hypocrite-mode on full blast, “they can’t really hurt ya.”

_Dust in his eyes, dust sticking to his bones, speckling his brother’s scarf wound around his neck—_

“those people can’t hurt you anymore, y’know? you’re going _tibia safe_ here with us.”

Not his best work, he’ll admit, but fuck it, it’s been a long night. At least the kid laughs so hard they snort, and that automatically makes it worth it.

“Thank you, Sans.”

Then something shifts in their head, and he can see it plain as day on their face.

“What are you doing up so early, anyway?”

He goes rigid, sitting backwards in the chair. It’s not a good look for him. Doesn’t really give off that “fun-loving dunkle” vibe. His first instinct is to lie, to act casual and brush it off like it’s nothing, like nothing could ever possibly faze _him_ , the ultimate in laziness and chill—

But he takes too long to respond, and the kid’s always been good at puzzles, anyway.

“It wasn’t the same as me, was it?”

He’s got it all planned out, he opens his mouth to say it— _nah, course not, i’m just so great at procrastinating i even procrastinate sleep—_ when arms come around him, flinging themselves over the back of the desk chair, arms slung over his thin nightshirt and leeching a comforting warmth into his cold, cold bones.

“kid?”

“I’m sorry,” they whisper. “I’m…s-so sorry you have them too.”

And suddenly, he’s hugging back.

“it’s fine,” he runs a hand between their shoulder blades, kinda how Pap liked when he was younger. “it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” they assert, and honestly, he can admit the kid knows what they’re talking about. “You deserve to be safe, too.”

Hearing that little sentence makes all of his bones vibrate, ring like a bell.

He sighs. “thanks, kid.”

They pull back. “Did you want to talk about—“

“nope!” He actually manages to break that off in time. “no offense, kiddo, but my dreams ain’t exactly good for a bedtime story.”

They don’t say anything, just nod, and bury their face in his shoulder. It’s got to be bony and uncomfortable, and yet the kid’s dozed off again in just a few minutes.

He has to admit, this feels—good, when he’s not scared, when he’s not seeing things that aren’t there, expecting a reset any moment.

He lays them back down in their messed-up sheets, and through the fog of exhaustion and pain that constantly clouds him, allows himself to feel a moment of empathy for the kid. They’re really both two sides of the same, fucked-up coin, in a way.

Turning the light off, he shuffles out of the room and down the hall back to the master.

It’s a cold comfort, but it’s something.

**Author's Note:**

> *insert spiderman pointing image here*
> 
> this was super self-indulgent lmao sorry. also it’s super late and I super needed this space to vent so I might delete this in the morning, we’ll see
> 
> tumblr: [ cyborgpluviophile](https://cyborgpluviophile.tumblr.com/)


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